Everybody has that one food that they just can’t keep in the house.  Right now for me that food is Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  I have no idea why this has become my new obsession, but three bowls later I wonder why I keep bringing it into the house.  Now let me give myself a little credit.  I have now switched the low fat milk with Vanilla Unsweetened Almond Milk.  This saves me 120 calories for every cup I use with my cereal, but three bowls is three bowls no matter how you top it.

            In Weight Watcher’s I remember them calling these “red light foods”—the foods that a person should just keep completely out of the house and not even eat AT ALL.  Green light foods would be ones like fruits and veggies and other foods that would most likely not throw you off the wagon.  I remember at one Weight Watcher meeting a woman lamenting that she had eaten way too many grapes—this was when fruit actually counted as points on the WW plan.  Our wise leader pointed out that eating too many grapes is not what got most of us overweight in the first place.  Now I am not saying that eating too much of any food is a good thing, but let’s keep this in perspective.  There is a huge difference between three bowls of sugary cereal and three bowls of grapes.

            Yellow light foods would be things that you want to eat in moderation like meat, cheese, carbohydrates, and dairy products, but what separates a yellow light food and a red light food is really personal to each individual.

            An absolute red light food for me is chocolate.  I can hardly write this word without wanting to lick the screen.  I cannot put one M&M, Hershey’s Kiss, or See’s candy in my mouth without going on a complete binge.  I have actually been know to have the ability to eat an entire one-pound box of See's chocolate in one sitting without making myself sick.  Actually, it is only known to me because as with any obsession, we rarely do it front of others.  Can you say closet eater?

            The other day I was sharing with my friend a story about a particularly low point in my life.  My neighbor had gone to Hawaii and had brought back a box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts for my family.  As no one else was home to see this thoughtful gift, I promptly hid it in a drawer where no one else could find it.  In the middle of the night I woke up to...and I say this very loosely...my box of chocolates. I shoved so many of those chocolates into my mouth that I was actually starting to feel full.  That’s when I started licking the chocolate off and spitting the nuts back into the box.  Like I said, a very low point.  Nothing is lower than stealing candy from your children.

            Back to the Cinnamon Toast Crunch…this is a hard food for me to eliminate, as my kids actually love eating this cereal.  Who am I to deprive them of a yummy treat when they usually make such healthy choices on a regular basis?  When I was a child my mom actually made her own bread, granola, and only had healthy food in the house.  This lack of occasional treats is why I would take my allowance and go buy candy, chips, white bread and peanut butter and hide them under my bed so I could eat them without my mother’s watchful eye.  This may have begun my obsession with food, and I just don’t want my kids to inherit this same difficulty.   

            After much deliberation, I think I may have actually found a solution.  The other day I put one cup of Fiber One cereal along with half a cup of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and my almond milk into my cereal bowl.  Not surprisingly, I could not eat more than one bowl of Fiber One infused cereal.  I was so full I could hardly put the last bite in my mouth.  In addition, it actually tasted like cinnamon and sugar so it satisfied my sweet tooth. I am hoping that this will allow me to eat less of my tempting sugary cereal, while still making this cereal choice available to my kids.  Weight loss, like many things in life, is all about making compromises.  I cannot completely deprive myself of things I love, or I could risk taking a long detour off my road to the more flabulous me.

        Vacations have always been a mixed blessing for me—I get my much needed rest and relaxation, but I almost always come back having gained weight and feeling bad about myself.  On my honeymoon, I actually gained 10 pounds on a 10-day cruise.  I could blame it on the seemingly round-the-clock all-you-can-eat buffets, but really, who gains that much weight on one vacation?  I was determined that this summer’s vacation was going to be different, and it was.

            Before we even left Murrieta for Monterey Bay, I packed more than changes of clothes and our swimsuits.  I started by packing the cooler with healthy snacks for the drive and almond milk for my coffee and for our oatmeal.  We also made sure to pack anything we might need for exercising—helmets and gloves for biking and my running gear for a long run along the coast.

            As I have shared in previous blogs, we love food and most of our fondest memories are surrounded by the amazing food we have experienced.  I am not going to lie to you—I planned to eat and experience amazing cuisine on this trip.  I was just going to make better choices, so I wouldn’t end up paying for it later.  In order to illustrate what I mean by good choices, I will share what we ate the day we drove up to Monterey.  Because we left the house so early, I didn’t have time to work out.  This meant I was going to need to make extra good choices on this day.  Here is what we ate:

         For breakfast we stopped at McDonald’s where instead of eating an Egg McMuffin and hash browns, we had their oatmeal cup and added our own bananas and almond milk from the cooler.  For those of you that have never had almond milk, this is an amazing substitute for milk.  Even non-fat skim milk has about 100 calories per cup.  The almond milk has 40 calories for the same serving size, and it tastes much creamier than the watered down tasting skim milk.  I even use it in my coffee instead of creamer.

        When we arrived in Monterey, our lunch choice, The Fish Wife, was closed, so we decided to have Vietnamese food.  We eat Vietnamese food once a week at home so we know what the healthy choices are.  We always start off with spring rolls (see photo) but we just make sure to go light on the peanut sauce that comes with them.  We also order a bowl of pho, which is a broth-based soup with noodles and lots of fresh veggies and herbs (see photo of the plate of garnish that comes with the pho).

        Whenever we go to Monterey, we always stay at the Best Western Beach Resort right on the water.  They have a restaurant with an amazing view of the entire bay, and so this is where we chose to end our day.  We can watch the sun set as we ate, which was an added bonus.  I was planning to have dessert, so I looked for the healthiest entrée on the menu.  I selected a veggie, sundried-tomato polenta stack.  As you can see from the photo, this was one healthy meal.  The bottom is a yellow and orange pepper coulis (peppers pureed with a little olive oil). There were two slices of polenta and a delicious array of grilled veggies and tomatoes.  Not only did it taste amazing, but the presentation made me feel like I was eating something decadent.  For dessert, we did not hold back, sharing a chocolate lava cake and a crème brulee.  Now because we were sharing this between five people, it was a reasonable way to not completely deprive ourselves.

        The rest of the vacation’s food choices went much the same way.  We either chose healthy meals or we made more decadent choices and shared them.  I think the message I want to get across in this blog is that you don’t need to completely deprive yourself…you just need to plan and make good choices.  For example, what really saved us this vacation was the exercise.  As you can see from my workout log, we began each day with either a long run or bike ride:

        Now, don’t think that you have to run or bike 11 miles everyday… it is just a matter of making exercise a part of your routine.  We used our runs and rides as a way to tour the coast and see things we couldn’t see driving in our car.  For example, we would never have noticed the dolphins playing in a little cove just 50 feet off shore had we not been on the bike path early one morning.  One evening we even rode our bikes to and from dinner to get a little extra movement in for the day.  Keep moving, make good food choices, but enjoy life. 


You only live once…so make it a healthy one but remember to enjoy life to the fullest.

        One year ago this week, I ran my very first 10K on the road to finishing my very first half-marathon as well.  I remember doing some 5Ks after Siobhan’s birth (although I don’t think I ever trained for them) and thinking I could never be good enough to finish a 10K—I was about to prove myself wrong.

            Bright and early last Forth of July, I drove my two sons down to Scripps Ranch to keep me company as I dragged my not yet flabulous body over 6.1 miles of beautiful landscape surrounding Lake Miramar. Right from the beginning Niall took off, but Eoin, who was in a jogging stroller, was forced to move at my not-yet-stellar pace. Now, I don’t know if you have ever run a race with a jogging stroller, but no matter how polite I tried to be people seemed annoyed that I was clogging up their road even if they were slower than me. I have since had to run with joggers and understand their frustration.  Nothing is worse than a huge stroller blocking your path, or worse yet, having a person pushing a stroller actually zoom past you.  I was able to push myself and Eoin across the finish line in 1:23, which is not bad considering all the extra weight I was pushing.

            Fast forward one year and here I was back at the Scripp’s Ranch Old Pro 10K race—no sons in sight, at least not mine.  This time it was all girl teams.  I was running with Stephanie, my mentor and friend from Team in Training, and Mary had her two college friends running with her.  Steph and I were dressed in our red, white, and blue, but we were definitely “out-costumed” by Mary and her twin Malinda.  We were also outdone by the group of college boys dressed in nothing but patriotic Speedos (which would have been Sean's costume of choice--thankfully he was injured for this race).  As you can probably visualize, this is a crazy-fun race!     

        Unlike the previous year, the weather was hot and humid, so I knew it would still be challenging even without the jogging stroller.  I was hoping with all the training I had done and without the stroller this year I would be able to finish this race in under an hour.  When the race started we all took off toward Lake Miramar—except for poor Steph who was knocked down by an inconsiderate runner before we even reached the bottom of the hill.  Ever the mentor, she insisted I go on without her even hiding behind other runners so I couldn’t see her when I turned around.

         Despite the miserable weather, I love this race.  The scenery is amazing (see the port-o-potty view), and the costumed runners never fail to entertain.  I spent most of my run right next to Speedo Boys who were pushing a jogger with a boom box, which by the way never worked because they had failed to supply it with batteries.  And at about mile 5 when I was feeling pretty exhausted heading over the dam, our friends Jeremiah and James were right there at the top waiting to cheer us on—I am very lucky to have such supportive friends!  One of the great things about this race is that the last half-mile is all downhill.  So, despite a kind of rocky start. I was still able to race across the finish line in a little over 1:03—just shy of my under one hour goal (and quite a few minutes ahead of Speedo Boys).  I had shaved 20 minutes off last year’s time, and I am pretty proud of that.

        Now, for those of you that were thinking how awful I was to let my competitive nature take over and leave an injured friend to finish the race on her own, I did run back and cross the finish line a second time with Stephanie.  Despite a pretty banged up knee, she pushed her way through the pain to complete her first 10K.  One thing I have learned through this whole run to flabuluos journey is that runners are a tough breed who always respect and support everyone's individual goals—and they make pretty amazing friends, too!

         As I have shared in previous blogs, this is not the first time I have attempted to lose weight and improve my overall lifestyle.  I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten so close to goal only to lose focus and move right back in the wrong direction.  I am ashamed to say that I may not even be able to count my attempts on both my hands.  But why do I continue to make the same mistakes over and over?

            I truly believe that the reason for my failures to reach goal are due to complacency.  First, when you start hearing how much better you look as you lose weight, it makes it hard to justify to yourself that you still need to get up early to get your exercise in.  It makes it easier to eat those foods that tempt you to overeat.  If I look so much better, why should I bother tracking what I eat?

            Also, I find myself getting complacent because I feel like I know what a good-sized meal looks like, so I stop weighing and measuring.  After all this time I should know what 4 ounces of sliced turkey looks like, should be able to eyeball a cup of rice, and I should know how many chips I can safely eat at a Mexican restaurant. It is this laziness that will slowly but surely pack back on the pounds.

            Related to the above, but really in a category of its own, is being careful about those extra little bites that make their way into your body.  When you get complacent, you can add a couple hundred calories to your daily intake in tasting the dinner you’re making, sampling your child’s macaroni and cheese, or grabbing a handful of nuts as you do your baking.  When you feel good about yourself, it can be easy to forget to be careful about all these little “meals.”

            I am not satisfied with good anymore.  I need to get to great this time and stay there…this is my ultimate goal.  I feel that this time I have a plan, which will really make the difference.  I am exercising at least five days a week, I am drinking my water, getting more sleep, and I am even working on the dreaded food tracking. With all these strategies in place I truly feel that this time is different.  Two years, ten years, fifteen years from now, I still plan to be at my goal weight, and you will see my flabulous body running off into the sunset.